


Rough

by Kantayra



Category: Alias
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-05-23
Updated: 2005-05-23
Packaged: 2017-10-19 03:05:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kantayra/pseuds/Kantayra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If Vaughn didn't like it rough, she'd find someone who did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rough

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, this little ficlet sprung into existence the other day from the conversation Syd and Vaughn had about their sex life. Which, as funny as it was with Jack listening and irritated, really seemed to prove to me how much S/V just did not work. They're not even compatible in bed, for crying out loud! Of course, this naturally got me thinking along the lines of who would let Syd be as rough as she wanted, and...yeah. I'm sure you can figure out the rest. :P There is a bit of S/V because, while this fic is about the Sarkney, it's also about how the S/V doesn't work. Lamentably, I was forced to write Vaughn for the first time. Let's hope it's the last. :P

_“You’re always rough.”_

Vaughn’s casual words seemed to haunt her every time she looked at him now. At the time he’d said them, they’d been on mission, in disguise, yet she’d still broken character to protest, demand clarification, express her bafflement. She’d finally concluded that he liked it, and that was the last time they’d discussed it.

But things hadn’t been the same since.

It had started off with her modifying her behavior in bed. He’d said he wasn’t complaining, but ever since she’d started holding back, turned soft and let him take charge instead, his praise of her in the aftermath had turned glowing. And it had become ever more clear to her that, while he wasn’t complaining when she was rough, he preferred her not to be. She’d just smiled and acted like everything was wonderful – much as he must have done before – even though the sex wasn’t satisfying her anymore. She could pretend, though, wear a mask. It was what she was best at.

If it had just been the sex, however, perhaps she could have dealt with it. But that one disparity between them seemed to have opened the floodgates of her awareness, and suddenly other little things struck her, ways in which they just didn’t _quite_ fit.

He was always overly cautious on missions and chastising _her_ for being ‘too reckless’.

The twang of his music gritted on her nerves, while he complained of the ‘discordant’ blues that was her own preference.

She was quick to anger; he seemed almost shocked, as if personally offended, whenever she expressed an outburst of passion.

He obeyed orders to the letter and only improvised under the greatest of stress; she lived for improvisation, obeying to the spirit of her missions rather than the letter.

He was quick to report the actions of even his friends to the authorities, whereas she has grown too suspicious through experience to even trust her superiors.

He dwelled upon his losses; she’d learned to live with what she had left.

He liked dogs; she liked cats.

He preferred to remain in the background; she liked to stand out.

He didn’t like to experiment in bed, and she was almost desperate for _anything_ new, anything to bring back her passion for him.

She had wanted to go slow; his definition of ‘slow’ had, apparently, been proposing.

It went on and on and on. Little incompatibilities that she’d never let herself notice before because she’d always been so distracted by the things keeping them apart, rather than what they were like together.

She’d told it all to Doctor Barnett one day, had practically broken down into tears in her office. “How can he be my soulmate if we’re so _different_?”

Doctor Barnett hadn’t answered her question, as always, and had instead wondered why Sydney hadn’t gone to Vaughn to discuss all this.

And that’s when she’d realized that this just wasn’t the sort of thing she and Vaughn discussed _ever_. Haltingly, hesitantly, she’d explained that they both felt so blessed just to be allowed to _be together_ that they never mentioned anything that would rock the boat. Even Vaughn’s initial admission had been an unintended outburst.

Or perhaps, Barnett had suggested, a Freudian slip. An indication that he was just as frustrated as she was.

Sydney had thought about that, then. Thought about all the things they’d white-washed in order to pretend everything was normal. His _wife_ and her betrayal, his shooting her; never a word. The affair they’d had behind her back, even before they’d known something was amiss. His betrayal of her by marrying in the first place, dating again only a scant nine months after her ‘death’. How seeing him then had driven her to despair, caused her to abandon everything she’d ever known or loved to choose yet _another_ dangerous, deep-undercover assignment. And those were only _her_ issues.

The night after her conversation with Doctor Barnett, she’d debated telling Vaughn everything. She’d come home early that afternoon and waited for his flight to bring him back from Brussels. He’d entered her bedroom – practically _their_ bedroom now, even if he hadn’t officially moved in yet – looking like the same kind man she’d fallen in love with so long ago. He’d offered her a small smile and a kiss, and she’d responded in kind.

“Vaughn, I—” she’d began seriously.

He’d silenced her with another kiss. “Later. I missed you.”

She couldn’t argue with the romance of that.

In the aftermath, however, as they lay back on the sheets – contented in his case, and frustrated in hers – she’d finally worked up the nerve to ask him. “Is everything all right between us?”

He’d frowned at that. “Why? Did I do something, say something…?”

She shook her head. “No, nothing like that. I was just wondering how you thought we were doing together.”

He smiled softly and kissed her on the forehead. “Everything’s perfect,” he assured her.

“Perfect,” she repeated softly, returning his smile. But inside she felt them breaking apart.

From that point on, she’d been looking around without really meaning to, seeing a world beyond Vaughn and the denial they’d lived in together. The two of them had gone to Marshall and Carrie’s for dinner one night, and her heart had practically ached watching the other couple. With every bit of stubborn bossiness, Marshall just seemed to love Carrie more. And her eyes always softened towards him whenever he went off on one of his infamous tangents. These were two people who loved each other for who they really _were_ , not for what they idealized they should be.

And for the first time Sydney really began to doubt. Things had felt so _right_ with Vaughn, but what had felt right to her were memories of how they had once been. The way they were now was a mere husk of that, an illusion, perpetrated with smoke and mirrors and false smiles. _How can anyone outgrow their soulmate?_ She asked herself one night. And, then, inevitably: _Or is Vaughn really my soulmate at all?_ The latter question she buried deep in the recesses of her mind, afraid to let it grow or to consider the ramifications. But she and Vaughn continued to grow apart, even if they denied it outwardly.

She’d run into _him_ again only two weeks later.

Actually, his absence had been surprising the previous year. Usually, whenever Sark was out of prison, he was the fly in her ointment. He’d been noticeably missing, and she was surprised to find a smile on her face one day when he cheekily approached her on her morning jog and repeated his nonsense about being a changed man. Her smile had, of course, instantly turned to annoyance at his first smug barb.

Over the next week, she’d watched him insinuate his way into the lives of those closest to her. A brief alliance with the CIA, a secretive conversation with her father, a tense meeting with Vaughn. She didn’t know why she noticed him more than she had in the past, except that when she was around him, that part of her that she kept from Vaughn burned most deeply and brightly.

And then she figured out why one day in Ashgabat. The heat was sweltering, the mission tense, and her fury and passion at their peak. She’d screamed at him on the car-ride home, wincing at the cut she’d taken to her side. Even with his cut lip and black eye, he’d retorted with his usual dry quips.

Finally in her motel room, she just couldn’t take it anymore. One memory haunted her with its prevalence in recent weeks: _Sark_ liked _it when I was rough. When I bit him..._ They had no lime this time, but her teeth grazed the cut on his lip just the same. He cried out and groaned at the same time.

Her tongue was rough and demanding against his, but he merely returned in kind. His fingers tangled in her hair, yanking her closer, forcing her body into his.

She shoved him back onto the bed, caught his wrists beside his head hard enough to bruise, and kissed him again voraciously. His knee jabbed her injured side, causing her to wince and release him, and he used the opportunity to roll them over, covering her with his hard body.

Their clothes hadn’t lasted long. Her blouse would probably be unsalvageable.

And there was no tenderness when he entered her. She was wet and excited, but not quite enough to accommodate his girth. She hissed in pain, but it had been so long since she’d felt anything but absolute gentleness from a lover that she craved it.

He whispered his concern raggedly in her ear.

She just shook her head. “Harder.”

It was a request he was more than willing to comply with.

His fingers dug into her thighs, opening her wider as he pounded into her roughly. With one hand, she clutched at the headboard to keep her body in place at the force of his violent thrusts. Her other hand went to his back, nails digging in and leaving red furrows in their wake. He moaned her name in response, kissed her ravenously.

He fell atop her, his weight pressing her back into the mattress. The muscles in her thighs strained to their limits as he increased his bruising rhythm. Finally, she managed to catch his waist on an in-thrust, wrapping her legs around him, pulling him in harder, deeper.

His teeth grazed her shoulder teasingly, then bit in, marking her. She gasped and caught at his hair, forcing him on.

It was painful and pleasurable and absolutely perfect.

When he came, his thumb ground into her clit roughly and insistently. Her eyes widened, staring into intense pools of blue, disbelief flooding her being for one teetering moment before she plunged over the edge with him, screaming out her ecstasy to the world.

When she awoke again, hot and sticky from the climate and the sex, she felt as though her entire body burned, but it was a _good_ burn, like the kind she felt after a good long run. Sark stirred slowly on top of her, softly kissing the teeth marks he’d left on her shoulder. She sighed as the sweetness melted away her pain, and realized with sudden certainly that _this_ was what she needed.

Her fingers were gentle on his back, soothing the scratches they’d made only minutes before. Her mouth caught his, her tongue softly caressing the cut on his lip until it stopped bleeding. With sudden triumph, she knew that she _wasn’t_ always rough; she certainly wasn’t now. She just needed balance between the two sensations, rough and soft. That was all it had taken for her to orgasm in a man’s embrace for the first time since she’d started holding back her true self from Vaughn.

“I must say,” Sark sounded nicely breathless, “that was quite unexpected. Although appreciated, I assure you.”

She smiled up at him, caressing the bruise around his left eye, even though that was one she hadn’t left. “That was… _amazing_ ,” she finally concluded. Briefly, she wondered at the wisdom of giving his over-inflated ego even more fuel, but she figured he deserved it for letting her be _herself_. “I’ve never…” She kissed him with sudden tenderness, an almost innocent brush of lips.

He smirked. “Please, do continue.”

She couldn’t help but laugh at his arrogance. It was just the edge she’d needed. He stirred her passions, matched her deepest desires and…

It had naturally progressed into a full-blown affair from there.

On planes, in motel rooms, even once in his penthouse in Bern. They didn’t meet often, rarely more than twice a month, and to a certain degree she _did_ feel guilty, even though he had officially ‘reformed’ according to CIA record.

Oddly, she felt more guilty about that than about sneaking around behind Vaughn’s back. _Their_ sex-life had trickled off to almost nothing. She even doubted that it was entirely because of reluctance on her part; Vaughn didn’t seem overly eager, either. Perhaps he could sense that something was amiss, but as per their usual custom, he didn’t say a word. His reaction just made it all the more apparent that, for all their talk of soulmates and destiny, they really didn’t know each other at all. It felt less like a betrayal to meet in secret with a man who raised her passions than to lie in bed at night with a man she was realizing was becoming more of a stranger every day.

One day, lying lazily in bed with Sark, after their usual rough round followed by what could only be called tender lovemaking, she asked him: “Do you think we could be soulmates?”

He laughed against the flesh between her breasts. “Hardly.”

She frowned. She knew that Vaughn certainly would have said ‘yes’ in a heartbeat. “How can you tell?” she asked curiously.

He sighed and rolled off of her, turning onto his side and propping his head up on one elbow to look at her. “I regret to be the one to inform you that soulmates only exist in fairytales. Please tell me I need not enlighten you with regards to Saint Nicholas, as well.”

She gave him a sour look, one that managed to be irritated and affectionate all at once. It was an expression she’d had to create solely for him because none other in her repertoire had matched the perfect blend of anger and pleasure she felt each time they met. “So you don’t believe there’s one person out there for you, then?”

He smiled indulgently and shook his head.

“That’s…sad,” she concluded. “Everyone should have someone, someone they’re meant to be with. Why else would you go on?”

“Because, my darling Sydney,” he replied, “I am more than the sum of my relationships with others. My self and my purpose are not so narrow that I need another to complete me. I would question the psyche of any individual who believed such.”

Her eyes flashed at his comment since he certainly wasn’t holding back any blows, but then she’d learned that he never did, so she held her tongue.

“And as for loneliness…” He paused to consider. “I find myself rarely lonely.” His hand traveled along her thigh slowly, as if his fingers were trying to memorize every inch of her. “Surely you’ll agree that, at least to a certain degree, we’re compatible?”

She conceded that point with a nod.

“That’s all anyone really needs. We all have greater or lesser degrees of compatibility. I don’t need one person because I have hundreds, thousands, with whom I could be equally content.”

“Gee, Sark, you sure know how to make a girl feel special,” she retorted sarcastically.

“Would you rather I regale you with romantic platitudes?” he inquired curiously. “I presumed from your question that you wanted a serious answer.”

“Fine,” she agreed. “Go on.”

“My point is that I am _less_ lonely for not having a soulmate. In any given scenario, I can find compatible companionship. Thus far, nothing has lasted, but I am always free to move on. There are always other possibilities. Those who only have one person in the world… Wouldn’t they be all the more alone for it?”

And she froze for a moment at the thought of her and Vaughn. How, yes, _lonely_ was exactly the way to describe the way she felt around him. “Interesting point,” she conceded. It was all she could offer at the time.

She’d thought about what he’d said, though, long after she would’ve liked. His words haunted her in a way that Vaughn’s originally had. She tried to brush them off as the atheistic beliefs of a man still so young he couldn’t imagine anything but his own worldview was true. But even that train of thought led to peril, because it made her realize that the attributes she wished to give to Sark better fit _her_ reaction than his. Somehow, that cocky, gorgeous son-of-a-bitch had reached a wisdom that had been eluding her for years.

She watched Vaughn after that, and the little ways they didn’t fit became more and more apparent. Yes, when they’d first met and had that constant hint of danger around them, it had worked to seek comfort in each other. But now… Now, they really weren’t compatible at all. Not without this constant game they were playing of making everything _seem_ all right.

And then one day, a month before the wedding, she finally realized what she had to do.

“I can’t take it anymore.”

Vaughn had looked up from the morning paper and frowned. “Sorry?”

“This is a lie, Vaughn. We’re trying to live in a past that just doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s not going to work,” she informed him wearily.

“I see…” he began slowly. “Where did this come from?”

She ran an angry hand through her hair. “It didn’t _come_ from anywhere! It’s been all around us for years now, but we just refused to see it. But…” Her eyes squeezed shut tight, fighting back tears. “I can’t marry you because of a lie. You don’t deserve that, and neither do I.”

“If you’ve got cold feet…” he tried to reassure her.

“That’s not it,” she insisted. “I’m sorry, Vaughn. I know that after everything we’ve been through, we wanted so hard to make this work, but it just isn’t for me, and I think for you too.”

He sighed, neither denying nor confirming her words. It was all the proof she needed that he _did_ feel the same way. “My grandfather’s watch…” he began hesitantly.

“Old things break sometimes for no reason,” she offered carefully. “Or maybe it was right then, because we were very much in love, but things changed.”

He laughed softly. “Actually, it’s working again. _She_ ,” he still refused to speak Lauren’s name, “had it fixed just before we separated.”

She took that for his agreement. He moved all his stuff out that afternoon, and they sent out regrets to their families that the wedding had been called off; they’d tell those closest to them in the morning. She watched him go as he took the last box out to his car and smiled wistfully at the era that was ending.

He smiled back. “Does it make me a bad person that I feel relieved? Relieved and guilty…”

She just shook her head. “It makes you a good man.”

The light in his eyes let her know that, even if their love-life was over, they weren’t. They were still friends, still partners, and would always be there for each other. It was a distance with which they’d always been the most compatible.

She watched him get into the car, wave, and drive off. It was almost astonishing how _natural_ breaking up had been. A sure sign that they both wanted to move on.

She thought about moving on, decided that it was the sort of thing she should take slowly, think carefully about. She didn’t want to be hasty and make the wrong decision, after all…

Within the hour she’d called Sark and invited him over for the evening.

He’d shown up at her doorstep, exactly on time, with a bottle of fine white wine and a curious expression. “I know you’re certain that your fiancé already suspects us, but need I remind you that the two of us can rarely coexist in the same room without resorting to blows?” he commented dryly as she took his black leather jacket.

“Vaughn isn’t here.”

“Ah,” he nodded. “Then we should enjoy anticipating him walking in on us.”

She bit her lip. “We broke up,” she admitted.

“Really?” Sark sounded thoroughly astonished.

She nodded and led him through her home. She watched his eyes scan the place curiously now that he was welcome for the first time. “The engagement’s off. He moved out this afternoon.”

“I do hope I was the cause.” He set the wine bottle down on her kitchen table and followed her deeper into the house.

“ _I_ was the cause,” she corrected him, coming to a halt outside her bedroom door. She turned suddenly on him, grabbed the lapels of his shirt, and slammed him back against the door, plundering his lips with her own.

He gasped for breath when she finally pulled away, catching her hips roughly and pulling her body into his so that she was pressed against every inch of him, could feel how much she aroused him. “Have I ever mentioned how much I adore your—?”

“Shut up,” she teased, her lips nipping at his throat.

“…Ability to take charge,” he finished with a moan. His hand caught at the doorknob behind him, and they stumbled into the bedroom together, falling easily to the bed.

She sat up over him and slowly, sensuously, pulled off her blouse.

“Naughty,” he chided when he saw that she was wearing nothing underneath.

She swatted away his hands when he tried to caress her flesh, however, palming the mounds with her own hands instead. “Undress for me,” she requested.

He smirked up at her, and his hands turned to the buttons of his shirt, popping them open one at a time. She felt her hunger grow as each new expanse of flesh was bared beneath her. Finally, the last button was undone, and he sat up so that their nude chests were pressed together, tossing his shirt aside.

“I can tell you enjoyed that,” he teased, his lips brushing her jaw as his hands ventured up under her skirt, pushing it up around her waist. He paused when he found her second treat for the evening and looked at her in surprise. “ _Very_ naughty,” he amended.

“So I didn’t feel like underwear tonight,” she shrugged. “You,” she placed a quick peck on the freckles at the end of his nose, “never finished with my request.” And she shoved him back down onto the bed.

His hands nearly fumbled at his belt buckle with need, but then his natural grace took over, and he pulled it from its belt loops. The sound of the metal clinking lightly was one of her favorites. But her _absolute_ favorite – the sound of zipper teeth unfastening – she always closed her eyes for, because that moment was almost _too_ intense for her.

“I’m at you mercy.” His accent was like silk to her ears.

She opened her eyes to find him lying back on the mattress, his hands folded casually behind his head, the world’s most cocksure expression on his face. Her gaze ventured down the length of his body, over pale muscular flesh down to dark blond curls where his cock stood, long and erect, eagerly awaiting her attentions.

She didn’t hesitate to settle herself over him, let his cock open her entirely with one quick downward thrust of her hips. He let out a ragged moan, not so cocky anymore, and his hands caught at her waist.

She rode him like that, as fast as she could, her fingertips tracing his chest, smoothing over his skin one moment and digging in deep the next. His hands gripped her thighs hard enough to leave hand-shaped bruises, and she forced her down on him ever harder, piercing deeper inside her with each thrust of her hips.

She felt herself spinning out of control, and her hands ceased their restless movements, unable to do more than prop her up on his chest as she moved. He must have sensed how close she was because his thumb flicked her clit sharply, then twisted in a quick motion that never failed to make her come.

He’d flipped them over by the time she’d come down from her ecstasy, and she could feel that his thrusts were erratic as he sought his release. Her hands felt so very heavy, but she managed to bring them up around his back, holding him close in those final moments. He buried himself in her shoulder, gasped out her name, and came.

They lay side-by-side in the aftermath, hands occasionally caressing lazily, but mostly just watching each other. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a blue so perfect as his eyes, and it astounded her every time. Made her forget what he had been – and maybe still was – and made her think that just maybe this could work after all.

Whatever was swirling in her eyes must’ve moved him because he leaned in to steal a soft kiss from her lips. She opened up for him easily, let him inside, let his tongue play with hers. Yes, this was nice. For now, this felt _right_. What tomorrow or the next day might bring, she didn’t know. He certainly was able to satisfy her in bed, but she had no clue how he’d do with the rest of her. But at the moment Sark was all she needed, and she had all the time in the world to experiment and see just how compatible they really were.

She giggled against his lips at the recollection of how this had all started, the memory of their first, very irritated kiss, and playfully she bit at his lip.

He swore and pulled back, touching the drop of blood there, and she happily rolled the copper taste of him around on her tongue. His surprise turned to humor almost at once. “I always knew you’d like it rough,” he teased.

She just smiled and told the truth. “Yes,” she agreed, “I do.”


End file.
